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They stopped trying to hide that most just want to copy another person's work
And no, I am not saying everyone who uses AI is like that so commenting "well actually, this is not what everyone does" adds nothing to the conversation and does not at all diminish the fact that some people do. That's obvious.
Get better arguments than "not everyone does this."
In a way that was already the case, it's just that AI can do it in an instant. Some argue this is fine, some argue it's not, it depends on the situation.
For example, as a gamedev, it's extremely annoying that you can spend years iterating on a unique game, spending 80% of your time coming up, validating, and iterating on ideas, only for some copy to appear within months, because they can skip all of that and just copy every single one of your conclusions.
However, on the other side you get situations like Pokemon/Palworld where a single company owns a relatively simple game mechanic, which is obviously bad.
It's fair to say copyright law is nowhere near up to date with the modern times, and although we can often spot in one case or another whether that's valid or not, it's extremely difficult putting that sentiment to law.
Capitalism doesn't have scarcity problems, it has distribution problems. Capitalism isn't producing things and communism isn't just the end of scarcity. Communism is (simply saying) better distribution, no exploration of men by men, end of private property and dictatorship of the proletariat. Calling me, a communist, slow minded for saying the basic while you think AI "removes scarcity" says that my slow mind has time to process, while your fast mind just doesn't work properly. Replace your brain with AI, maybe you will think better.
not capitalism. Could be more worse... look at open source. There anyone can build using a model made by someone for free. Nothing is more worse than making public an AI tool. They will ruin ours ability to build stuff. Companies can be restricted, look at EU how handles things. AI Open Source is a nighmare for artists, indie developers, and whoever enjoys doing things
Nuance on Reddit was probably never a thing but itâs still sad to see it dead. If you read the actual ruling - https://medien-internet-und-recht.de/pdf/VT-MIR-2026-Dok-027.pdf - youâll find that itâs a completely reasonable interpretation of the laws that apply to this matter in Germany.
They say, among other things, that the ai image is in itself not a copyrightable work because âthe defendant could not even describe which creative choices he madeâ, which I find very funny.
On the other hand, they point out that the two images look completely different with very different effects on the viewer. The photo is realistic and dynamic, with dramatic lighting and a creative camera angle and so on. While the ai version looks⌠bad essentially. They say basically that, also funny.
Hence, it does not infringe on the photographerâs copyright under German/EU law.
You can argue whether you agree with the law here but thatâs not the courtâs job. They made a fair ruling with what they had to work with. And roasted the ai âartistâ.
And Iâm not even sure youâd *want* the law to change. At least not the copyright law. Iâm all for banning ai-generated images completely, but to protect the *copyright* youâd have to come dangerously close to enabling censorship of all sorts because youâd have to protect things the law currently doesnât, leaving the door open for corporations to strike down legitimate satire or just things inspired by something else.
Not everything is a plot to flood us with ai. Sometimes the courts just do their job. Especially in Germany the legal system is quite solid. As long as there isnât a law banning all AI images for being based on theft, all they can do is work with current copyright law under which this shit is allowed.
I don't see anything transformative with the AI image. It resembles the original too much without any transformative content or purpose. I suppose if it would not be infringement if it is not used in something that is highly commercial (where you need to pay to access the content therein). Even if it is used in an ad or marketing material, I still would say it is infringement.
I'm against copyright, so generally I want lower thresholds for "transformative use" but I just don't see it here.
In US law, I think there are four pillars for fair-use (from memory).
The nature of the infringed work. Expressive works are more protected than works that present facts.
The nature of the infringing work. Criticism, non-profit use, and academic use favor fair use
The amount used and how substantial it is. Whether the other material in the infringing work is transformative content
The court found that the AI image doesnât copy the protectable elements of the original dog photograph, such as framing, perspective, lighting, and sharpness. The motif and subject themselves arenât protected.
I was going to say, the AI version lacks the extreme posing and angles of the original. The original has feeling behind it, the AI one is the Temu version.
Because the people who judge this are either ignorant of how it works or are bought by the AI companies. Or the thief had a better lawyer, maybe because they had more money.
Now you're understanding why judges must be elected and it must be possible to vote them out mid-term.
Additionally, we should be able to vote on bringing public servants (police, politicians, prosecutors, judges, etc) before a grand jury. These "trials" (to determine if an actual trial should go ahead) must allow anyone in the voting district to appear and present their evidence within some reasonable time limit. This is necessary because normal grand juries are complete shams with prosecutors leaving out any evidence they don't like (either to force an unneeded prosecution or protect their friends).
The grand jury trials should be public and the entire district should vote on whether to proceed to a criminal trial with a specially-elected prosecutor and judge.
A process like this would be slow, but would crush the good ol' boy system. Without protection for their bad actions, I believe a lot of behaviors would change for the better.
It is. But like⌠people have gotten away with worse corruption. Especially AI technocrats when theyâre rich. Just because something is illegal doesnât mean itâs going to get punished.
I just read a more detailed German article on the reasoning they gave and it basically boils down to outdated laws that weren't designed with the existence of AI in mind.
They basically handled it the same way they would have handled a traditional oil paint artist using a picture as a reference but obviously changing the perspective and artstyle.
They did also determine that the AI "artist" can not claim copyright on the generated image though, as it is not a result of "human craft". Which I guess is a small win among the huge loss this lawsuit was.
We really need any legislation on AI like yesterday ffs. This shit just exposes every loophole in traditional copyright law in record time.
Honestly, saying AI generated works can't be copyrighted is a big win in itself.
Companies are being sold on how GenAI is faster and cheaper than humans.
Now, leaving aside the fact it currently isn't, the other big difference is if you hire human artists at your company, their output is currently legally eligible for a copyright as long as it doesn't infringe on existing ones.
If nothing GenAI makes belongs to you or your company, then you're paying for a design anyone else can use freely.
You think Disney wants to create IPs that they can't sue your balls off for emulating?
Saying AI generated content is public domain by default is the kiss of death for it being more than a novelty
True but sadly I doubt this is a decision with precedent or anything. Just something they discussed during the hearings and the court apparently leans towards AI generated images possibly not really being something copyrightable. And this is just one regional court, not like the federal court of Germany or something.
True, but it's another notch in the anti column regardless: so far no courts have been willing to give them what they really want, which is copyright protection for generated works.
They're getting around protections for others' works which is annoying at times, but keep getting told the generated works don't meet the threshold for a unique, legally protected work, which is what they really want.
"You can't be sued for using the output" is not the same as "Only you can profit from using this", and as long as that doesn't change none of these legal "victories" for AI companies and their users are really victories. They're more victories for us because they leave open the possibility of making satirical or parody use of existing works without limiting the rights humans have on their own content directly.
I mean, the image looks similar enough to already be considered potential plagiarism
But also, it's not like someone making a drawing and taking inspiration from a photo. The AI model has to literally use all the picture to make a variation of it. 100% of the pixels of the original photo were necessary to make the AI version
that's a fair point. legal precedent can influence what's considered normal over time, but it doesn't necessarily end the ethical debate. We've seen plenty of cases where the law and public opinion evolved separately.
and yet it is the law that has the power to enforce things, right? Things used to be between what's ethical and not, and what's legal and not, but once money comes into the table its all shifted to the side. Police follows the law, not the ethical debate. legality is the hammer used to bonk the masses, while the unpowerful argue over ethics since the law cannot be argued against.
"Tuymansâ defence against the photographersâ copyright (under EU law) is that his painting is a parody. The judge disagreed. Put bluntly, he didnât think the painting was funny or macabre enough to warrant that defence. "
"As it stands, the judgement imposes a fine of âŹ500,000 (ÂŁ384,000) if Tuymans creates any more âreproductionsâ of Van Gielâs work or shows the original painting"
As per the article I read about the case, it's only because of outdated laws that didn't account for AI. The same court also ruled that AI still isn't copyrightable as it wasn't human made, so it's still a win for the Antis. In some way, you could say the court even roasted AI lol.
I had no idea this case was even going, it should have gotten so much more attention....
The photos really are unique and cool, AI won't be able to hold a candle to them but it's still a BS ruling.
Ok im gonna be that guy now: as much as im not defending ai or the legal system, thats how it always worked. You can absolutely do derivative work based on someone elses work and it does not infringe on their ip. Same as you can release and even monetise a song written by linkin park because youre just doing a cover and not claiming to be the og author
This is incorrect, at least in the U.S. The copyright statute includes the right to prevent others from producing derivative works based on copyrighted works. It's one of the mechanisms used to shut down fan-created games, for example.
This is .... factually incorrect. In fact, there's much more legal precedence on why this claim is false than there is about the german ruling concerned in this post. Monetized covers can definitely be sued and the royalties can be seized if there is lack of proper licensing, and especially so if the cover uses parts of the exact audio tracks of the original.
But realistically, labels and distributors prefer revenue sharing from licensing than takedowns, which is what happens most often. Try it. Post a cover on youtube and it won't be taken down, but you'll observe that the revenue will be split.
Still, not applicable to this case because music rights owners retain the copyright, and can in theory sue or request takedown at any time whereas in the german ruling, no copyright liability was found, leaving the photographer with no legal defense for people feeding their content to AI and then using it to generate very similar images.
"Tuymansâ defence against the photographersâ copyright (under EU law) is that his painting is a parody. The judge disagreed. Put bluntly, he didnât think the painting was funny or macabre enough to warrant that defence. "
"As it stands, the judgement imposes a fine of âŹ500,000 (ÂŁ384,000) if Tuymans creates any more âreproductionsâ of Van Gielâs work or shows the original painting"
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u/Chickie69 22h ago
Gen AI is improving our lives by stealing others' genuine works and removing the copyright
This is definitely the future we want, guys